Trump Admin Set To Expand Number Of Civilians Killed By Drone Strikes

The United States drone program by all objective analysis has not been a precision instrument for killing terrorists. Instead, the program has reversed long-standing policies of basic international human rights and rules of war by implementing pre-emptive killing without due process.

After years of Obama’s drone strikes that independent watchdog group Airwarsestimated to have been ten times the number as those of George Bush before him, the political pendulum has swung back to the right, but the killing of civilians continues to accelerate under Obama’s supposed arch nemesis Donald Trump.

Now, however, all pretense at protecting innocent lives is about to be cast off and the killing will become inexplicably worse as the Trump admin reportedly seeks to do away with a clause contained in the Presidential Policy Guidance known as “near certainty.” As Daniel R. Mahanty, senior advisor for CIVIC’s U.S. Program, explains:

In 2013, President Obama, who drastically increased the number of drone strikes during his tenure, delivered a speech in which he outlined the contours of new Presidential Policy Guidance, or PPG, making this principle abundantly clear. Henceforth, the decision to target and kill people outside “areas of active hostilities” would require a “near certainty” of no civilian casualties, and lethal force would only be used when capture was not feasible. In essence, the use of force in these limited circumstances would more closely approximate a law enforcement, rather than wartime, paradigm.